Cruel to be Kind
by khaleesilukrezia
Summary: Complete AU story. Caroline is in her finishing year of college when Klaus rolls into town. They haven't seen each other since he had to leave to New Orleans and take care of his business. She will once again find herself on the crossroad of decisions. What will she choose this time? The comforting or the unknown? There will be Bonnie and Kol, so you know up front.
1. Chapter 1

"Klaus is back."

"What?"

"Hadn't you heard? Klaus is back."

"Oh my God!"

I hurried on down the long corridor, through chattering students and gossiping faculty members, and again I overheard it, as another pair of professors met.

"You haven't heard about Klaus , I suppose?"

"No. What should I have heard?"

"He's back."

"Not here?"

"Yes. In the college."

"Not staying, I hope?"

"Who's to say? With Klaus , anyhow."

This was what I wanted. It was something, when we meet after several years apart. At that last meeting he had become my lover, or so I was vain enough to think. Certainly he had become, agonizingly, the man I loved. All through the years I had fretted and fussed and hoped for a postcard from wherever he might be in Europe, but he was not a man to write postcards. Not a man to say very much, either, in a personal way. But he could be excited; he could give way to feeling. On that day in early May, when he had told me about the latest development, and I - so eager to serve him, to gain his gratitude and perhaps even his love - did an inexcusable thing and betrayed the secret to him, he seemed lifted quite outside himself, and it was then he took me in his arms and put me on that horrible old sofa in his office, and had me amid a great deal of confusion of clothing, creaking of springs, and peripheral anxiety lest somebody should come in.

That was when we had parted, he not knowing how to handle this new development between us and I overcome with astonishment and devotion, and now I was to face him again. I needed an opening remark. So, up the two winding nights of stairs, which the high ceilings made rather more like three flights. Why was I hurrying? Was I so eager to see him? No, I wanted that, of course, but I dreaded it as well. How does one greet whom one loves and who has had one on his old sofa, and whom one hopes may love one in return? It was a sign of my mental state that I was thinking of myself as "one", which meant that my English was becoming stiff and formal.

There I was, out of breath, on the landing where there were no rooms but his. I didn't wait for knocking and answering,because if i did, i am not sure i'll have strength to come in, so i went straight for the handle. Moment i was in and saw him sitting by his desk all i could mutter was „ You are back." all acompanied with short breaths and feeling of not standing on my own two feet.

The effect was more than I had reckoned for. He straightened in his chair, and although his mouth did not open, his jaw slackened and his face had that look of intentness that I loved even more than his smile, which was not his best expression.

"That's what they're all saying in the main hall." he finally answered, snickering, looking at me with his usual tease.

„Have you had a good summer? Done any work?" he asked again, with his hands clapped together, on his desk. His eyes as sea blue as i remember them, but not giving away much amusement, as i remember they used to. Nothing to recall the adventure on the sofa, which was right beside him and seemed to me to be the most important thing in the room. He didn't give a damn if I'd had a good summer. He simply wanted to know if I had been getting on with my work - which was a niggling little particle. So I began to explain what work I had been doing, and after a few minutes he noticed that I was standing and waved me to a chair. He was pleased with my report.

"I've arranged that you can work in here this year. Of course you've got your own dog-hole somewhere, but here you can spread out books and papers and leave things overnight. I've been clearing this table for you. I shall want you near."

I trembled. Do girls still tremble when their lovers say they want them near? I did. Then –

"Do you know why I want you near?"

I blushed. I wish I didn't blush but at twenty-three I still blush. I could not say a word.

"No, of course you don't. Couldn't possibly. But I'lll tell you, and it will make you jump out of your skin." He got out of his chair and in a moment, he was in front of me, looking straight into my eyes,playing me as always. „But before i tell you the news, you need to stop looking at that sofa over there and concentrate on me, here, talking to you." He smiled, wickedly and i blushed again, now of shame. He remembers, but not only that he remembers, he is playing me around based on that fact, i thought. „Undoubtedly the foremost patron of art and appreciator and understander of art this country has ever known has died. Immensely rich, and spent lavishly on pictures. They'lll go to the National Gallery; He was also a discriminating collector of books, and they go to the University Library. But he was a not-so-discriminating collector of manuscripts; didn't really know what he had, because he was so taken up with the pictures he hadn't much time for other things. The manuscripts go to the Library, too. And one of those manuscripts will be quite useful to me, I hope. As soon as we can get our hands on it you will begin your serious work - the work that will put you several rungs up the scholarly ladder. That manuscript will be the guts of your thesis, and it won't be some mouldy, pawed-over old rag of the kind most students have to put up with. It could be a small bombshell in Renaissance studies."

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to say: am I just a student again, after having been tumbled by you on the sofa? Can you really be so unfeeling, such a professor? But I knew what he wanted me to say, and I said it.

"How exciting! How marvellous! What's it about?"

"I don't really know, except that it's in your line. You'lll need all your languages - French, Latin, Greek, and you may have to bone up some Hebrew."

"But what is it? I mean, could you be so interested if you really didn't know?"

"I can only say that it is very special, and it may be a - a bombshell. But I have a great deal to get through before lunch, so we must put off any further talk about it until later. You'd better move your stuff in here this morning and put a sign on the door to say you're inside. - Nice to see you again."

And with that he shuffled off in his old boots up the steps into the big inner room which was his private study, and where his camp-bed lurked behind a screen. I knew because once, when he was out, I had peeped. Nice to see me again! Not a kiss, not a smile, not even a handshake! Disappointment worked through me like a poison. But there was time, and I was to be in his outer room, constantly under his eye. Time works wonders.

I was sufficiently bitten by the scholarly bug to feel another kind of excitement that somewhat eased my disappointment. What was this manuscript about which he was so evasive?

I was arranging my papers and things on the table in the outer room after lunch when there was a soft tap at the door and in came someone who was certainly very good and close friend of Klaus. I knew everyone else in here, he wore dark colors, that had just that hint of fancy dress about it that marked it as Anglican rather than Roman. But he wasn't one of the professors.

"I am Kol Mikaelson if you prefer it; is Klaus in?" Felt like he was reading my mind.

"I don't know when he'll be in; certainly not in less than an hour. Shall I say you'll come back?"

"My dear, what you are really saying is that you expect me to go away now. But I am not in a hurry. Let us chat. Who might you be?" This man was handsome, quite dark and articulate, everything about him was articulate. Hearing his last name, they are brothers, or so i thought, because these two don't look a bit alike. .

"I am one of Professor's students."

"And you work in this room?"

"After today, yes."

"A very special student, then, who works so close to the great man. Because he is a very great man, among those who understand what he is doing. I suppose you must be one of those?"

"A student, as I said."

"You must have a name, my dear."

"I am Miss Forbes ."

"Oh, what a jewel of a name! A flower in the mouth! Miss Forbes. But surely more than that? Miss What Forbes?"

He was wandering around, picking things, looking at them, as if this whole situation is amusing to him.

"If you insist on knowing, my full name is Caroline Aileen Forbes."

"Better and better. But what a contrast! Forbes - with the accent firmly on the 'o' - . Not Canadian, I assume?"

"Yes, Canadian."

"Of course. I keep forgetting that any name may be Canadian. But quite recently, in your case, I should say."

"I was born here."

"But your parents were not, I should guess. Now where did they come from?"

"From England."

"And before England?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I am insatiably curious. And you provoke curiosity, my dear. Very beautiful girls - and of course you know that you are very beautiful - provoke curiosity, and in my case I assure you a benevolent, friendly curiosity. Now, you are not a lovely English rose. You are something more mysterious. That name -Aileen- means the bringer of light doesn't it?

I was only able to nod at this point. This man, seemed utterly nosy,making personal questions, but i felt some dose of fright and couldn't not to answer him.

„Names are of the uttermost importance. So I'll tell you about mine; it is of norse and I suppose once, very long ago, some forebear of mine was a persuasive talker, and thus came by it. I think we are going to be very good friends."

"Yes - well, I must get on with my work. Professor will not be back for some time."

"How lucky then that I have precisely that amount of time. I shall wait. By your leave, I'll just put myself on this disreputable old sofa, which you are not using. What a wreck! Klaus never had any sense of his surroundings. This place looks just like him. Which delights me, of course. I am very happy to be snuggled back into the past of dear old Spook."

"I should warn you that he greatly dislikes people calling him the college Spook."

"How very right-minded. You may be sure that I shall never make that mistake in his presence. But between us, Care - I think I shall call you Care, a short for Caroline - how in the name of the ever-living God does he expect that a place called the College of St. John and the Holy Spirit will not be called Spook? I like Spook. I think it is affectionate, and I like to be affectionate." He was smiling like a real Spook on the other hand, but i haven't made that comment, couldn't.

He was already stretched out on the sofa, which had such associations for me, and it was plain there would be no getting rid of him, so I was silent and went on with my work."I should warn you that the Rector greatly dislikes people calling the college Spook."

But how right he was! The room looked very much like Klaus, and like Spook, too. Spook is about a hundred and forty years old and was built in the time when Collegiate Gothic raged minds of architects like a fire. The architect of Spook knew his business, so it was not hideous, but it was full of odd corners and architecturally indefensible proportions, and these rooms where Klaus lived were space-wasting and inconvenient. Up two long flights of stairs, they were the only rooms on their landing, except for a passage that led to the organ-loft. There was the outer room, where I was working, which was of a good size, and had two big Gothic arched windows, and then, up three steps and somewhat around a corner was his inner room, where he also slept. The surroundings were as Gothic as the nineteenth century could make them. But Klaus, who had no sense of congruity, had furnished them with paintings, books and weird ornaments. His rooms were, by ordinary standards, a mess, but they had a coherence, and even a comfort, of their you stopped being offended by the neglect,roughness and I suppose one must say darkness, they were oddly beautiful, like Klaus himself.

Kol was on the sofa for almost two hours, during which I do not think he ever ceased to stare at me. I wanted to get away on some business of my own, but I had no intention of leaving him in possession, so I made work for myself, and thought about him. How had he managed to get so much out of me in so short a time? How did he get away with calling me "my dear" in such a way that I did not check him? And "Care"! The man was all of brass, but the brass had such a soft, buttery sheen that one was disarmed. I began to see why people had been so dismayed when they heard that Klaus was back, along with him came this one.

At last Klaus returned.

"Klaus Dear old Klaus! My dear man, how good to see you again!"

"Kol - I heard you were back."

"And isn't Spook delighted to see me! Haven't I had a real Spook welcome! I've been brushing the frost off my habit all morning. But here I am, with my dear old brother, and charming Care, who is going to be another dear friend."

"You've met Miss Caroline?"

"Darling Care! We've been having a great old heart-to-heart."

"Well, Kol, you'd better come inside and talk to me. Miss Forbes., I'm sure you want to get away."

Miss Forbes is what he calls me in semi-formality, which he uses very seldom.

They went up the steps into his inner room, and I jumped down the two long flights of stairs, feeling in my bones that something had gone deeply wrong. This was not going to be the wonderful term I had expected and longed for.

* * *

******Hello everyone. I would like to show my great gratitude and love for people who are there to encourage me to write and publish my stuff. They are wonderful ladies and great friends. Tina, Vero, Ifi, snark princess Krissy and of course lovely Jacki. This story is dedicated to you ladies!**  



	2. Chapter 2

I like to be early at my work; that means being at my desk by half past nine, because academics of my kind begin late and work late. I let myself into Klaus's outer room and breathed in a strong whiff of the stench not very clean men create when they sleep in a room with the windows closed - something like the lion's cage at the zoo. There was Kol, stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep. He wore most of his clothes but his heavy coat he had used as a blanket. Like an animal, he was aware of me at once, opened his eyes, and yawned.

"Good morning, dear Care."

"Have you been here all night?"

"The great man gave me permission to doss down here until somebody finds a room for me. I forgot to give the proper warning of my arrival. Now I must say my prayers and shave; i do shave - in cold water and without soap, unless I can find some in the washroom. These austerities keep me humble."

He pulled on and laced a big pair of black boots, and then from a knapsack he had tucked behind the sofa he brought out a dirty bag which I suppose contained his washing things. He went out, mumbling under his breath, singing or cursing i couldn't right pick so I assumed - and I opened the windows and gave the room a good airing.

I suppose I had worked for about two hours, getting my papers laid out, and books arranged on the big table, and my computer plugged in, when Kol came back, carrying a big, scabby leather suitcase that looked as if it had been bought in a Lost Luggage shop.

"Don't mind me, my dear. I shall be as quiet as a mouse. I'll just tuck my box - don't you think 'box' is the best name for an old case like this? - in this corner, right out of your way." Which he did, and settled himself again on the sofa, and began to read from a thick little black book, moving his lips but making no sound. More mummbling under his breath, I supposed.

"Excuse me, Mr.; are you proposing to stay here for the morning?"

"For the morning, and for the afternoon, and this evening. They have no place for me, though Klaus was kind enough to say I may eat in Hall. If that is really kind, which my recollection of Spook food makes me doubt."

"But this is my workroom!"

"It is my honour to share it with you."

"But you can't! How can I possibly work with you around?"

"The scholar's wish for complete privacy - how well I understand! But Charity, dear Care, Charity! Where else can I go?"

"I'll speak to Professor !"

"I'd think carefully before I did that. He might tell me to go; but then there is a chance - not a bad chance - that he might tell you to go to your carrel, or whatever they call those little cupboards where graduate students work. He and I go far back. Brothers from a time before you were born, my dear."

I was furious, and speechless. I left, and hung around the Library until after lunch. Then I returned, deciding that I must try again. Kol was on the sofa, reading a file of papers from my table.

"Welcome, welcome dear Care! I knew you would come back. It is not in your heart to be angry for long. With your beautiful name - Caroline, you must be filled with understanding and forgiveness. But tell me why you have been making such careful study of that sort? I've been peeping into your papers, you see. It is not the kind of company I expected to find you keeping."

"Rabelais is one of the great misunderstood figures of the Reformation. He's part of my special area of study."

How I hated myself for explaining! But Kol had a terrible trick of putting me on the defensive.

"Ah, the Reformation, so called. What a fuss about very little! Was Rabelais truly one of those nasty, divisive reformers? Did he dig with the same foot as that pestilent fellow Luther?"

"He dug with the same foot as that admirable fellow Erasmus."

"I see. But a dirty-minded man. And a great despiser of women, if I recollect properly, though it's years since I read his blundering. But we mustn't quarrel; I've seen dear Klaus since last we talked, and he says it's all right for me to stay. I wouldn't fuss him about it if I were you. He seems to have great things on his mind." He winked at me and all jolly was going through all over scattered news papers.

So he'd won! I should never have left the room. He'd got to Klaus before me. He was smiling a cat's smile at me.

"You must understand, my dear, that my case is a special one. Indeed, all my life, I've been a special case. But I have a solution for all our problems. You'll be astonished at how handy I can be. Look, I've already rearranged the books in the bookcase, so that they make sense alphabetically." Damn! I'd been meaning to do that myself. Klaus could never find what he wanted because he was so untidy. I wanted to cry. But I wouldn't cry in front of Kol. He was going on. "I suppose this room is cleaned once a week? And by a woman Klaus has terrified so she daren't touch or move anything? I'll clean it every day so that it will be as clean - well, not as a new pin, but cleanish, which is the most a scholar will tolerate. Too much cleanliness is an enemy to creation, to speculative thought. And I'll clean for you, dear Care." "Will you respect me enough not to snoop through my papers?" "Perhaps not as much as that. I like to know what's going on. But whatever I find, dear girl, I shan't betray you. I didn't get where I am by blabbing all I know." And where did he think he had got to? Shabby like a monk, the answer came at once: he had got into my special world, and had already taken much of it from me. I looked him squarely in the eye, but he was better at that game than I was, so very soon I was trotting down those winding stairs again, angry and hurt and puzzled about what I ought to do. Damn! Damn! Damn!

As I walked down the avenue of maples that leads towards the University Bookstore I was as happy as I suppose it is in my nature to be; my nature tends towards happiness, or towards enthusiastic industry, which for me is the same thing ; the three of us sat in office in one of the big bank towers in the financial district, while a man we met with ( his name was so complicated that i gave up trying to remember it after asking two times), told us the whole story we or Klaus needed to know. He was not uncivil, but his style was not what we were used to. We knew all about meetings where anxious deans fluttered and fussed to make sure that every shade of opinion was heard, and strangled decisive action in the slack, dusty ropes of academic scruple. He knew what had to be done, and he expected us to do our parts quickly and efficiently.

"Of course I am to look after all the business and financial side," he said. "You gentlemen are appointed to attend to the proper disposal of the possessions - the works of art and that sort of stuff. It could turn out to be quite a big job. The things that have to be shipped and moved to new owners should be put in the hands of a reliable shipper, and I'll give you the name of the firm I've chosen; they'll take orders from you, countersigned by my secretary. She will help you in every way possible. I'd like to get it done as soon as you can manage it, because we want to get on with probate and the dispersal of legacies and gifts. So may I ask you to move as quickly as you can?"

Klaus and Kol do not like to be asked to move quickly, and particularly not by a man who is not yet thirty and above all human. They can move quickly, or so they imagine, but they don't like to be bossed. Klaus spoke :

"Our first task must be to find out what has to be disposed of in the way of works of art, and 'that sort of stuff', to use your own phrase, Mr."I suppose there must be an inventory somewhere." Now it was Kol's turn. "Did you know your uncle well?" he asked looking at me quizically. "Not really. Saw him now and then. He wasn't much of a family man." "You never visited his dwelling?" "His home? No, never. Wasn't asked." I thought I had better put in a few words. "I don't think home is quite the word one would use for the place where he lived." "His apartment, then." "He had three apartments," I continued. "They occupied a whole floor of the building, which he owned. And they are crammed from floor to ceiling with works of art - and that sort of stuff. And I didn't say over-furnished: I said crammed."

Klaus resumed the job of putting the rich brat in his place. "If you didn't know your uncle, of course you cannot imagine how improbable it was that he possessed an inventory; he was not an inventory sort of man."

"I see. A real old bachelor's rat's-nest. But I know I can depend on you to sort it out. Get help if you need it, to catalogue the contents. We must have a valuation, for probate. I suppose in aggregate it must be worth quite a lot. Any clerical assistance you need, lay it on and my secretary will countersign chits for necessary payments." After a little more of this we left, passing through the office of the secretary who had countersigning powers (a middle-aged woman of professional charm) and through the office of the other secretaries who were younger and pattered away on muted, expensive machines, and past the uniformed man who guarded the portals - because the big doors really were portals. "I've never met anybody like that before," I said as we went down sixteen floors in the elevator. "I have," said Kol. "Did you notice the mahogany panelling? Veneer, I suppose." "Not veneer," said Klaus. "I tapped it to see. Not veneer. We must watch our step with that young man." Kol sniggered. "Did you notice the pictures on his walls? Corporation taste. Provided by a decorator. " I had looked at the pictures too, and he was wrong. But we wanted to feel superior to the principal executor because we were a little in awe of him. During the week that followed, Klaus, Kol, and I met every afternoon at three apartments. We had been given keys by the countersigning secretary. After five days had passed our situation seemed worse than we could have imagined and we did not know where to start on our job. Man had lived in one of the apartments, and it had some suggestion of a human dwelling, though it was like an extremely untidy art dealer's shop - which was one of the purposes to which he put it. He had done much in his lifetime to establish and gain recognition for good Canadian painters. He bought largely himself, but he also acted as an agent for painters who had not yet made a name. This meant that he kept some of their pictures in his apartment, and sold them when he could, remitting the price to the painter, and charging no dealer's fee. That, at least, was the theory. In practice he acquired pictures from young painters, stacked them in his flat, forgot them or absent-mindedly lent them to people who liked them, and was surprised and hurt when an aggrieved painter made a fuss, or threatened a lawsuit.

He had seldom sold a picture for an artist, but when it became known that he had some of them for sale, other and more astute dealers sought out that artist, and in this haphazard way he was a considerable figure in the dealer's world. His taste was as sure as his business method was shaky.

Part of our problem was the accumulation, in apartment number one, of a mass of pictures, drawings, and lithographs, as well as quite a lot of small sculpture, and we did not know if it belonged to him, or to the artists themselves.

As if that were not enough, apartment number two was so full of pictures that it was necessary to edge through the door, and push into rooms where there was hardly space for one person to stand. This was his non-Canadian collection, some of which he had certainly not seen for twenty-five years. By groping amid the dust we could make out that almost every important name of the past fifty years was represented there, but to what extent, or in what period of the artist's work, it was impossible to say, because moving one picture meant moving another, and in a short time no further movement was possible, and the searcher might find himself fenced in, at some distance from the door.

It was Kol who found four large packages in brown paper stacked in a bathtub, thick in dust. When the dust was brushed away (and Kol, who was sensitive to dust, suffered in doing it) he found that the packages were labelled, in beautiful handwriting, "P. Picasso Lithographs - be sure your hands are clean before opening." Or he was more sensitive to it, because he had to actually put some effort in it, usually i believe if he is anyhow like Klaus, he would have numbers of people puppets doing things for him. He seemed like a man who enjoyed life and didnt care about anything else. He scared me at times. At times again he would be extremely nice and sweet, one of the reasons you could connect Klaus and him being brothers, although they shared no resemblance in the looks department. My own Aladdin's cave was apartment number three, where the books and manuscripts were. I realized it will be a huge deal for me to take on alone, so i called my best friend Bonnie to help me out with search and dusting off. That is, I tried to make it mine, but Klaus and Kol insisted on snooping; it was impossible to keep away from such a place. Books were heaped on tables and under tables - big folios, tiny ones, every sort of book ranging from scripts to what seemed to be a complete collection of first editions of Edgar Wallace. Stacks of books like chimneys rose perilously from the floor and were easily knocked over. There were illuminated books, and a peep was all that was necessary to discover that they were of great beauty; Uncle must have bought them forty years ago, for such things are hardly to be found now, for any money. There were caricatures and manuscripts, including fairly modern things; there was enough stuff - marvellous unpublished mock portraits of royalty and of notabilities of the nineties and the early nineteen-hundreds - for a splendid exhibition, and my heart yearned towards these. And there was pornography, upon which Kol pounced with snorts of glee. I know little of pornography. It does not stir me. But Kol seemed to know a great deal. There was a classic of this genre, nothing less than a fine copy of italian sonnetts, with all the original plates by Giulio Romano. I had heard of this erotic marvel, and we all had a good look. I soon tired of it because the pictures - which Kol invariably referred to as "The Postures" - illustrated modes of sexual intercourse, although the naked people were so classical in figure, and so immovably classic in their calm, whatever they might be doing, that they seemed to me to be dull. No emotion illuminated them. But in contrast there were a lot of Japanese prints in which furious men, with astonishingly enlarged privates, were setting upon moon-faced women in a manner almost cannibalistic. Klaus looked at them with gloomy calm, but Kol whooped and frisked about until I feared he might have an orgasm, right there amid the dust. It had never occurred to me that a grown man could be so powerfully fetched by a dirty picture. During that first week he insisted again and again on returning to that room in the third apartment, to gloat over these things. Bonnie and i were rolling our eyes, that i was afraid that at some point they might stay stuck in the back of my skull, never to return to normal position. Kol was not of stupid kind, he saw and heard our displease and he turned to us, almost apologetically : "You see, I do a little in this way myself," he explained; "here is my most prized piece." He took from his pocket a snuffbox, which looked to be of eighteenth-century workmanship. Inside the lid was an enamel picture of Leda and the Swan, and when a little knob was pushed to and front the swan thrust itself between Leda's legs, which jerked in mechanical ecstasy. A nasty toy, I thought, but he added on it. "We single gentlemen like to have these things," he said. "What do you do, Klaus? Of course we know that you have your beautiful Care." He rolled his eyes and with a smirk looked at Bonnie and I. To my astonishment Klaus blushed, but said nothing. His beautiful Care? Pff i didn't like it, not one bit. I got paranoid. Does Kol know something of early happenings? Brothers didn't seem like types that share secrets, happened between the sheets or lets say house work place furniture. I told myself, ill just shut up, and go back to the books, because thinking about this subject got me blushing and feeling unease and strange around them. On the fifth day, which was a Friday, we were further from making a beginning on the job of sorting this material than we had been on Monday. As we moved through the three apartments, trying not to show to one another how utterly without a plan we were, a key turned in the lock of apartment number one, and Bonnie came in. We showed her what our problem was.

"Good God," she said. "I had no idea it was anything like this."

"I don't suppose it was ever cleaned," said Kol. "Your Uncle Francis had strong views about cleaning-women. I remember him saying - 'You've seen the ruins of the Acropolis? Of the Pyramids? Of Stonehenge? Of the Colosseum in Rome? Who reduced them to their present state? Fools say it was invading armies, or the erosion of Time. Rubbish! It was cleaning-women.' He said they always used dusters with hard buttons on them for flogging and flailing at anything with a delicate surface." "I knew he was eccentric," said I.

"When people use that word they always suggest something vague and woolly. Your uncle was rather a wild man, especially about his works of art." said Kol, seemingly very amused with Bonnie's presense.

Bonnie did not seem to be listening; she nosed around. There is no other expression for what one was compelled to do in that extraordinary, precious mess.

She picked up a little water-colour sketch. "That's a nice thing. I recognize the place. It's on Georgian Bay; I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. I don't suppose it would do any harm if I took it with me?"

She was greatly surprised by the way we all leapt at her. For the past five days we had been happening on nice little things that we thought there would be no harm in taking away, and we had restrained ourselves. Klaus was getting increasingly annoyed,and when he is like that he isn't the best company to have around. Kol, was... Kol. He found strangest of things amusing and funny, never missing a moment to make a comment on my or Bonnie's account. She felt strange around him, or she ignored him or just rolled her eyes and turned her back on him, which he of course took off as obvious challenge to go deeper under her skin and tease her. The sketch was signed; Had my uncle bought it, or had he taken it at some low point in Varley's life, hoping to sell it, thereby getting some money for the artist? Who could tell? If he had not bought it, the sketch was now of substantial value, belonged to the dead painter's estate. There were scores of such problems, and how were we expected to deal with them? That was when we found out why , Bonnie was needed : "You'd better query any living painter who can be found about anything signed that's here; otherwise it all goes to the National Gallery, according to the will. We can't go into the matter of ownership beyond that. 'Of which I die possessed' is what the will says, and so far as we're concerned he dies possessed of anything that is in these apartments. When she went, she looked wistfully. I know i wasn't. 


End file.
